Diane Thompson, county Assembly’s heart, dies at 61

Monday

Diane Thompson of Falmouth, clerk of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates for all but two of its 21 years, died Sept. 9 in Boston. She was 61.

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Diane Thompson of Falmouth, clerk of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates for all but two of its 21 years, died Sept. 9 in Boston. She was 61.

“She had sort of liberal instincts, but the fact is she got along with everybody,” said Assembly Speaker Ron Bergstrom, the last in a long line of speakers to rely on Thompson’s guidance and expertise. “She treated all the delegates with respect, as they did her in return. She did a terrific job, and this will be a big loss for us.”

The Worcester native was a noted zoning consultant and advocate of affordable housing. Longtime Assembly member Julia Taylor met her when Thompson worked for Falmouth’s zoning board, on which Taylor served.

“She was utterly superior to anybody I dealt with,” Taylor recalled. “She was able to be nice to people, to make them feel better, along with being extremely good on details.”

The seed for Thompson’s appointment as Assembly clerk was planted in November 1990, when Cape towns shook up their delegate representation. Taylor replaced Falmouth Selectman Ray Labossiere and Cynthia Cole outpolled Luc Poyant for Barnstable’s seat.

“Both Ms. Cole, most noted as a pro-[Cape Cod] commission activist and environmentalist, and Ms. Taylor have expressed positive interest in the commission,” the Patriot’s Fred Bodensiek wrote on Nov. 8, 1990. They were joined by newcomers Susan Peters of Eastham and Dick Spitzer of Chatham, both vocal supporters of the commission. Delegate Joan Condit of Yarmouth was reelected in a battle with a commission opponent.

The headline on Jan. 3, 1991, was “New assembly dumps clerk.” David B.H. Martin of Cummaquid, former chairman of the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Barnstable Planning Board, “learned about his pending ouster” the morning of the vote, Bodensiek wrote.

“We knew we needed a change,” Taylor said this week of conversations with like-minded new members. “The big thing was who would be the clerk. I said, well, you just gotta trust me. I have the perfect person.”

The new Assembly, Bodensiek continued in 1991, “will be much more friendly to the Cape Cod Commission just by its composition. It made that plain with the non-rehiring of Barnstable’s Martin, who framed much Assembly legislation that fine-tuned Cape Cod Commission rules and other proposals, and the hiring of Falmouth’s Thompson, much of whose expertise is in zoning and who has a strong tie to the new Assembly majority.”

An editorial in the Jan. 3 issue quoted Martin saying he thought “I was dumped because I was a loving critic of the Cape Cod Commission Act that so many of the new members worked for. They didn’t understand the ‘loving’ part. They assumed that anyone who questioned the act was against it. I was for the concept. I was just very concerned, and still am to this day, that it may not stand up under a challenge to its constitutionality. I’m not the only lawyer who feels this way.”

Summing up, the editorial noted there were “few, if any, who have a better grasp of the legalities of political process and few, if any, who have less of a grasp of the subtleties of the accepted conventions often required to make the political process work.”

In the same issue, columnist Ed Semprini cited an interview with Harwich delegate Jim Noonan, who told The Cape Codder that the Cape Cod Commission could become a dynasty and that “the new crop of delegates will merely be a simpering bunch of rubber stampers for the commission.”

It was in that controversial setting that Thompson began her 19-year tenure as clerk.

“Diane was somewhat reluctant to do it,” Taylor recalled. “There was going to be political trouble.”

From the outset, Thompson appeared to be the anti-Martin.

“She just had a way about her,” said former speaker Charlotte Striebel. “She could be furious with you, but she’d still be very happy. There was just something about her. She did that job, and she did it beautifully.”

Striebel said Thompson and she “worked very closely together when I was the speaker. I went to the office quite often to work with her, and tried to learn the right way to handle things. She was most gracious in helping me and teaching me what to do.”

Thompson sat at the left hand of the speaker during Assembly meetings, leaning over to whisper a helpful word frequently. At other times, she’d be called on to speak from her professional and historical perspective.

“So often we’d be considering something and say, ‘This ordinance looks like a good one,’” Bergstrom said. “She’d say, ‘Well, it is, but this ordinance you passed five years ago conflicts and you have to revisit it.”

Paul Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, said Thompson “was much more than a clerk. She acted often almost as legal counsel.”

The loss at this time, Niedzwieicki said, “is more profound because the Assembly and county are looking at the charter. There’s a lot of head-scratching for the legislative body. Diane would have been one of those voices of reason and experience. She was very gracious, very calm, even in somewhat prickly circumstances. She kept her cool.”

Niedzwiecki said he “can’t imagine that body functioning that smoothly without her. You almost have to commit to a new way of doing things, have a clerk and counsel present.”

Before Thompson’s recent illness, plans had been put in place to have Michelle Springer, who works part-time in the commission’s affordable housing office, fill in as clerk pending Thompson’s hoped-for recovery.

Striebel said it will be “hard to find the right person to replace” Thompson. “It’s going to be a huge learning experience on that person’s part.”

“She was the keeper of the flame,” Bergstrom said. “When we have our meeting Wednesday, it will really sink in that she’s gone.”

Taylor, her friend and colleague, said the hiring of Thompson was “my greatest contribution to county government.” Then she added, “I never worked with a finer person in public life, or one that I admire more.”

Thompson is survived by her son Lee Thompson of Falmouth, daughter Elizabeth Thompson of North Andover, and granddaughter Gwendolyn O’Keefe.

Visiting hours will be held Sept. 14 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Chapman Cole and Gleason, 475 Main St. in Falmouth. On Sept. 15, a funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. at the John Wesley United Methodist Church at Gifford Street and Jones Road in Falmouth.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Falmouth Dog Park. Checks should be made to “Together We Can/Dog Park” with Diane Thompson’s name in the memo line and sent to Together We Can/Dog Park, 46 Fisher Road, Falmouth MA 02540.

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